I am attempting to transfer sped up audio from an old cassette tape (1995-1998). When I initially did this, I was able to slow down the audio, but the words are barely legible due to background echo and scratchiness. For a little background, I am using the latest edition of Audacity and already tried the OpenAI VINO to remove the background echo, but ended up removing too much audio AND corrupting the file.
Are their any tips folks have for transferring recording and making them LEGIBLE? Or is it impossible due to the original recording conditions?
Usually the brain is the best filter so if it’s important you might want to type-up a transcript.
There are 3rd-party “de-verb” “de-reverb” plug-ins that MIGHT help with the reverb (“echo”) but I’ve never used one so I don’t know which ones work with Audacity or how well the work…
You can also experiment with the Graphic EQ effect to bring-out the “voice frequencies”. You can cut the lowest & highest frequencies, and beyond that just play around with the sliders. It’s usually better to cut than boost because you can end-up boosting into clipping (distortion). Then you can optionally use the Amplify or Normalize effect to maximize/normalize the overall volume.
…It might be a good idea to keep an unmolested digital copy because AI is getting better every day!